Thursday, 07 February 2013

Itchy tolerance

According to Gawker, [Michael] Bloomberg once told a female colleague to “kill
it” when she announced her pregnancy, only after teasing her about being
too ugly to be engaged. Another Bloomberg employee complained of the
institutional harassment at Bloomberg LP in the late 1990s, and believed
that the misogynistic workplace culture was linked to her being raped
by her superior in a hotel room. Also, “in 2007 the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against Bloomberg LP on behalf of
78 women who claimed that Bloomberg — who at that point was not
involved in the day-to-day company operations, despite being a majority
shareholder — and Bloomberg LP ‘fostered, condoned and perpetuated’ a
hostile work environment for female employees.”

This is pretty bad, right? Nevertheless, nobody seemed
to really care when they elected him to mayor the first, second or third
time. And nobody seems to really care now either.

Imagine if there was a similar history of his saying or
condoning disparaging remarks against blacks or Jews. Our inboxes and
Facebook feeds would be filled with celebrity-endorsed pleas to sign
online petitions pressuring him to resign from office. He would feel
obligated to at least mutter some public apology, even if it clearly
wasn’t heartfelt. But talk down to women like this, and the outrage is
barely existent. (Think I am over exaggerating? Remember what happened
with serial misogynist Charlie Sheen? The actor’s career was derailed
by a single anti-semitic comment, after years of reports of domestic
abuse and porn addiction.)

Sure, sexism can be more difficult to define than
racism or anti-semitism (because humans + sex drives = messy), but when
there is a pattern of misogynistic behavior like Bloomberg’s, albeit
alleged, I wonder why we are so darn tolerant.

Well, the answer to that question explains in part why Obama is president.